Soft Solids and Complex Fluids 2009

 

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2008 program

 

Welcome to the webpage for Soft solids and Complex Fluids, an annual summer school for graduate students  in soft matter and statistical physics hosted by the Physics Department at UMass Amherst.  We are holding the second of these annual schools from Sunday May 31st, to Thursday June 4th, 2009.

There is a growing level of activity in physics departments in fields whose concepts and practices are inspired by the ideas and methods of classical condensed matter and statistical physics. These include liquid crystals, granular matter, solid mechanics, polymeric and colloidal physics and micro-fluidics, as well as biophysics. However, courses in the basic techniques common to these areas do not find a standard place in graduate curricula of most physics departments.  Our hope is to help fill this need.

This year's courses and lecturers will be -

Polymer Dynamics Michael Rubinstein U. of North Carolina 
Glassiness and aging in soft matter Robert Leheny Johns Hopkins University
Nonequilibrium Phenomena, Especially Plastic Deformation of Amorphous Materials James Langer U. of California Santa Barbara 
Geometry of soft materials Randy Kamien U.  of Pennsylvania

 

Our target audience consists of graduate students who are early in their career in a research group.  Our lecturers will anticipate that you have a standard background in graduate classical and quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics and the associated mathematical methods.  If you are a graduate student who meets this description, please do visit our application page to apply.  

Supported by

Office of Research and the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, UMass Amherst

           

 

 
Narayanan Menon (menon@physics.umass.edu)